Audio Diaries
Sitemap BioShock Audio Diary Object : * See Also : Audio Diary Analysis * See Also : Public Announcements * See Also : Columbia_Audio_Diaries ---- Accu-Vox : Carrying a brick around like this .... Yeah... NO. There's even a scene of Suchong holding one of these huge things upto his face (recording an infamous story event happening) in one of the BaSx scenes (A proper Dictating machine might be more probable - something seen in countless 'coroner' scenes in TV shows --- SERIOUSLY how do you cut into a brain only ONE-HANDED ???). They had recording machine things already back then, and you also had a thing called a microphone you could use/wear (they even had headsets to make things easier). Big Clumsy glowing box used to tell the games backstory ... (we're carrying like 70 of those things around by the end of the game ???) ---- Accu-Vox Recordings Wind Up in Strange Places : You say to yourself "What is this thing doing here ??" Maybe some were placed in your path by 'Atlas' or Sofia ? (how likely did any of them fit into their swindles that much ??) Why would many recorded by influential people with many personal thoughts be scattered so widely, away from wherever these people would keep such personal things. A few were messages/memos to someone else, but should phone messaging or real memos have sufficed for that ?? Of course maybe they became items of trade between Splicers, who carried them everywhere/anywhere in Rapture. Entertainment is where you find it. They can lose their value if re-recorded over (any moron/Spider Splicer can find a ton of old Accu-Vox machines, but ones with neat messages, those are much harder to find...) A good one you can trade for a whole roll of pre-Civil War 'TP Abbreviation for 'Toilet Paper' !!!! In the MMORPG - we would look for them, and the City Council/Archives are interested in any with Old messages intact, and no doubt there would be some general use for them by the Player as well (and possibly parts of them or their functionality). - They did fit in the Pneumo, so maybe there was a convenience factor if you didn't have to cart too many around. Really how big are they ? -- The leather-grip handle makes it look like it is 12 inches tall and 8 inches wide and probably at least 2 inches thick. THAT is pretty big/clumsy, and as was done real world would call for removable media instead of single-use'ing that entire mechanism). A magnetic coated metal disk possibly would be a decent replacement for some more complex and long playing cassette type mechanism. Potentially smaller fist-sized models might have eventually been developed. ---- Lost Audio Diaries (LOTS of Additional Ones in MMORPG) : * Player created Audio Diaries (Lets see how good the Voice Talent is ...) * Needs to fits the current Lore/Canon for New Rapture * Old ones from the BS1/BS2 time frame should be found in the game somewhere. (Corrections ???) * Can be created a part of Quests/missions * Obviously Player Created Audio Diaries have to be carefully vetted for content. * Ryan's new recording of how he tricked Fontaine and faked his own death.... (you find these as the MMORPG game progresses). * City Archives might have alot of the original ones from the game accessible (with documented sequences and analysis by 'historians' ), and new ones can be turned in for credit (or at least the Accu-Vox that is worth CASH by itself) * Old Accu-Voxs may need to be 'fixed' (repaired) before they can play. * New Feature - Accu-Vox with a 'LOCK' on it (like a personal diary) -- Players can use or find one that needs to be 'cracked' or 'Hacked'. ---- A Tool With Many Uses : I would assume AccuVox had a general utility, so a whole lot of these Accu-Vox things would have been reused and put to other uses ??? (Things get boring in Chaos-era Rapture. OR logical use even before that) : * Dramatic last words ( "I have only one pair of tumor encrusted legs to give for my Faction -- Hail and Farewell!!!!" ) * Words of 'Loved Ones' long dead ... (a keepsake) * Messages between Faction groups ("Join Hephaestus and Stay Warm !!!") * Recorded favorite music (Note - they had to have more than half a minutes worth of recording space) * Commercials/Slogans (rigged up to local announcement systems as players) * Verbal Agreements (commercial deals, etc...) BTW, What powers these things ? - Batteries eventually go dead (later ones - especially in BS2, which exist often 7+ years after the incidents the recording are about). --- --- --- Improved 'Audio Diaries' ' : That BioShock Accu-Vox thing seems more designed for people who like to hear themselves talk rather than have much real utility value (a paper pocket notebook can hold 100X as much messages, allow corrections/modifications/additions, and even have drawn pictures/diagrams and such). All that versus the game Accu-Vox recorder mechanism which is shown to be bigger than a brick, and hardly 'pocket' anything (convenience factor abysmal - hardly a viable 'gadget fad' for very long - and certainly with the number we find scattered everywhere). Removable Recording Media would be in the MMORPG -- to have such a 'recording' device make a bit more sense, as well as 'tracks' for multiple messages on the same media (some kind of early magnetic disk ...). With the same giant NEON indicators for these objects in the game, they wouldn't be any harder to spot/find than the 'Accu-Vox bricks'. The 'Pocket Radio' (possibly by 1959 a common consumer item) that Jack gets could have had a 'magnetic' Player built in to play these 'disks' (the Deluxe Version records). Heh - For Delta/Sigma an In-Suit 'Disk' Player could be likely (used for constantly playing inspirational/therapeutic materials, or even just music -- Big Daddies can get bored like everyone else.) Real Notebooks ... There will be lots of those too (an easier game Asset NOT requiring a Voice Actor or superior Voice Generation to create). Wet conditions may have somewhat obscured these 'notes', and thus be part of 'puzzle' Quests the Players get to figure out -- "OH GREAT. THAT FRICKEN UNINTELLIGIBLE PART MUST'VE SAID 'DANGER FATAL HAZARD!!!' ... DON'T GO THERE AGAIN !!!!' " ---- . . '''THE STUPID REGURGITATION USED IN ''INFINITE BS ''' . . . . . . . . . . . You Got THIS Retarded Thing]] . . . . . . . . Remember that in BioShock 'Audio Diaries' are supposed to be self-contained to have all the immediate/intimate recordings needed for the backstory delivery element used in the game. In Infinite BS, they never bothered to have something simple like an Edison cylinder Gramophone-type device, which was completely mechanical and WORKABLE in its simple recording system. ''Instead, you got something ^^^ a retarded dust bunny would justifiably laugh derisively about - Something so ignorant in design that Elvis would come back from the grave and slap the gamemakers on the head over and over for having something so dim.'' '''SIMPLE Improvements : * Plausible - You find only the (smaller/more robust) Media (record/cylinder) Object, and YOU play them on public players found everywhere (was a Show City for Tourists - remember ) ... * Imaginitive - Futuristic quantum RECORDER CRYSTALS (use stolen tech so to not require that idiotic/dim-wittingly-designed mechanism they came up with.) Their was No Reason to do technical 'half-measure' re-use of old-type mechanics in a bizarre nonsensical way. It just looks stupid AND done stupidly. * TO BE Less a Regurgitation (from earlier games) -- Have the recorder be combined with a Brownie Camera or Motion Picture Camera to have the game Audio Diaries morph into mini-films (or at least a slideshow with pictures). * Game Gimmick - Include a REAL RECORDER APP (integrated in the game) so that the Player themselves can record their own Audio Diaries (includes scratchy effects and nice filters to make the audio quality appropriately 'tinny' ). - Caustic Commentary ----------------------> ' =A BAD copy of the previous games' Audio Diary idea -- CUZ the other games had them. (New ideas ?? ... Naaaah too risky). Done here with a "mechanism" that probably 'looked neat', but is completely absurd and mentally dim to ANYONE who even understands what a 'record' Record Player is, or how it HAS to work (many of these game artists/managers seem clueless or was it they simply didn't care ??) = =Sloppy, when alternatives could as easily been used : = =Like those little cylinders (which the actual REAL recording players of those times used) ... THE OBJECT THEN WOULD JUST BE THE MEDIA. They fit in these little cylindrical boxes to PROTECT them too .... (google it) = =That instead of having this problematically HUGE/CUMBERSOME carried mechanism (its a great way to BUST records Kenny, and BTW such a thing don't record (outside of terrible Fantasy) without a HUGE machine (see pix below) to record this platter-type media). = =The Recording Object would then be played on some stationary machine. (Its a Show City, so they'd be all over the place for the Exposition tourists to listen to landmark/event descriptions, No ??) -- The idea being in 1893 the EXPOSITION VISITORS could buy recordings (COLLECT THEM ALL!!!) and also have their own personal ones made in the 'Booths' at the fair to take home. = =Logical and fitting for the setting ?? Imagine that. = =Took me all of 5 seconds to think of that plausible alternative. And WITH exactly the same game usage (backstory) - Maybe a quite a bit smaller as prop objects, but they can still have that same bright *HERE IT IS* neon-glow in-game -- hard to EVER miss seeing/finding them. = =. = =Strangely enough, this stupid device here could be swung at an Enemy's Head like 'The Wrench' and do about as much damage ... another missed opportunity. Sad. = --- --- --- 'AutoGenerate Audio Diaries ? : Narratives is not the only use for Audio Diaries in the game. They are also a way to get more flavor into that plot info -- accents, emotives, colloquialisms, inflections, (even sound effects) which are VERY hard to do with simple text or a standardized narration voice. It adds alot to the game to hear more of what various inhabitants Said and Thought - especially things from the past. The info is reviewable/inspectable, more-cohesively than one-time monologue messages immediately from the in-game NPCs (who really can't do much more than a bunch of disjoint one-liners and a few antics). Of course this quality is hard to generate without direct recording of Voice Actors (meaning that detail would be hard to auto-generate (the voice itself). Improvements in Voice Synthesis in the future may make it possible to 'Play Script' the Audio Diaries and bypass the expense of having a statically recording by a Voice Actor. Idea for Many Audio-diaries To be Composed 'On-The-Fly' : Is Voice Synthesis possible to use 'on-the-fly', to have mutatable content for Accu-Vox Assets (auto-generated Quests have script controlled changeable 'fill-in' details and various optional wordings/details). (Note-- because Quests presentations usually are not 'real-time' the specific asset need not be generated in 'real time'). The Voice Synthesis converts Text (possibly a more phonetic form than plain English) which comes out as voice (and sound effects/background sounds). One would hope that Voice Synthesis advancements include inflections and accent variations by the time of this MMORPG (otherwise the 'recordings' will sound more like Stephen Hawking than like real people). Lore type content is generally fixed, shouldn't much change. (its alot of work to fit variations into the whole fabric of the plot, without introducing conflicts). Other minor stories you would want to vary in details between Server Worlds (different in each World to try to prevent Internet publishing from Players to get 'fixed' Evidence in the game and put it out for everyone to read and use and spoil any challenge). Largely independent Quests can vary in location/personalities/other details (the mechanism allows the Quest itself to be 'created on-the-fly' with all details scripted). Names of new 'semi-big' characters mentioned, might be shifted/inserted, but old known (Classic) ones couldn't really be modifyable without alot of complex alternate plots (way too much work, confusing to coordinate across the wider game situation -- the people who 'vet' content have to work in a cohesive way). Accu-Vox recordings, Public Announcements matching current game events, generated Media (TV/Radio shows/advertisements), Flashbacks, pre-recorded Telephone messages, etc... Many uses for this in place of dedicated ( and static) voice acting. --- --- --- Infinite BS Coulda Had A Quantum Recorder Thing for Its Audio Diaries : Might as well have phonied up something like this to match the rest of the nonsensical things in the game (when they didn't even try to make something like a period-used recording cylinder). It would be some mechanism Tear-stolen from the future ... A "Micro Tear" forming a circular echo chamber device (an explanation as plausible as any given in a game chock full of faux-science.) (Bast only knows how they might actually manufacture such things - maybe Fink just pilfered a whole lot of them). That dim record-player-like Audio Diary object (used in the Infinite BS game) makes me think that the designers didn't even know what a record is, or is like, or how it works or anything about how they HAVE to be made. ---- ---- ---- . This shows how complicated a REAL WORLD 'portable' disk recording machine was (electronic yet - see the Tubes visible on the electric chassis on right). Something Fink might have TRIED to come up with (still looks LESS ridiculous than what they had in Infinite BS). . . . . --- --- --- DID YOU KNOW ??? : * That early record players had Bamboo Needles' (which needed to be regularly sharpened ? * That they also had Steel needles which you normally threw away after only ONE use (or it would damage the record)? * That It takes a machine weighing hundreds of pounds to record on master recording Disks (why is why dictating machines continued to use cylinders, and for which the sound quality could be fairly poor to still function). * That Before electronics existed (amplifier tubes) it was ONLY the force on the needle which generated the sound - thereby limiting the amount of sound an acoustic record could generate. * That cylinder recordings (also referred to as 'Roll Music') were used into the 20s (but were superseded by 1915 ... with the Disks shaped records). Amberol - an early plastic of which later cylinders made - blue colored typically - earlier ones were made of a a hard wax/lacquer. NOW YOU KNOW !!! ---- A portable record (disk) player (this one NOT a 'pocket' version). Art Deco style. Pre-Electronic. Even in the original BioShock games, there was no reason for the entire PLAYER device to be integral - just the media need be that glowing 'story device' object/thing you could spot/find from 100 feet away. Tapes, Magnetic-wire spools, Mini-records ... just like the real world would have been fine, instead of carrying that brick Accu-Vox for EVERY SINGLE MEMO, or the even more frickenly absurd record player-like fantasy object used in the third game. ---- --- --- --- An Audio Diary You DIDN'T Hear : Fontaine, Olympus Heights Apartment Secret Room, 1957 : "*Drunken Slurred Speech* I'm gonna ram ADAM up Rapture's Arse and Rape it to Death before moving on to the rest of the World !!! I swear I'm gonna do it !! F$%^& YOU RYAN !!!!" --- --- --- Fun with an Accu-Vox : Impersonate someone-you-dont-like's voice, get an Accu-Vox, and record a "Andrew Ryan Suxx" message, and then Pneumo it to the nearest Security Station. That person you don't like disappears, and then you laugh... (Seriously the 'Porter was framed' plot idea like this (they made up in BS2) was kinda lame/unrealistic). - Flashback SCENE of FONATAINE trying to do this to one of his Business Competitor Targets - trying to mimic that persons voice saying some rather obscene/outragous things to incriminate them. Funny if it was Peachy Wilkins who actually 'Fingered' Fonataine this same way. --- --- --- --- --- . .